


you're the magic in my veins

by lecornergirl



Category: Pocket Monsters: Sword & Shield | Pokemon Sword & Shield Versions
Genre: AU: gym challenge age limit is 18, Aged-Up Character(s), Crop Top, F/M, Friends to Lovers, if i had more patience it would be slowburn but it is what it is, in this house we do not ship 12-year-olds, tent sharing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:00:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27443029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lecornergirl/pseuds/lecornergirl
Summary: The day before Gloria enters the Champion Cup is warm, and she changes into the crop top from the Hulbury Gym without really thinking about it. Her hair has grown out during the Challenge, reaching halfway down her back by now, and sun-warmed strands tickle her ribs as she makes her way to Wyndon Stadium.Hop's gaze seems to catch on her exposed stomach as he visibly gulps. Gloria smirks and tosses her hair, just the slightest twitch. It won’t be visible in the stands, but Hop’s eyes track the movement like he’d track an opponent’s battle plays.“Trying to distract me is playing dirty,” Hop says.// yes it's another take on Hop and Gloria, i love them, sue me
Relationships: Hop/Yuuri | Gloria
Comments: 3
Kudos: 76





	you're the magic in my veins

**Author's Note:**

> title from boom clap by charli xcx 
> 
> listen this fic is not just about the crop top but the crop top is why i wrote the fic, which is why it gets top billing

Later, when she reflects back on it, Gloria will say it started way back at the Professor’s house, with the completely endearing little victory fist pump Hop did when Sonia announced she was making curry. That, she’ll say, is what tugged on the exact right heartstring and set her on the path she’s still following today. (Even later, when she’s honest with herself, she’ll realise it started way before that. But it’s a neat little starting point, and it really did awaken something within her).

Really, though, it doesn’t start until the Gym Challenge, after Bede is a complete dick and goes about everything the worst possible way. Sure, the guy has issues, but does he really have to take them out on Hop? Bede gloats about it to Gloria, and she’s about to put him in his place—maybe with her Pokemon team, maybe with her fists, she’s not quite sure yet—but he vanishes as abruptly as he’d shown up, and she almost loses her balance from the punch she didn’t get to throw.

Bede’s comments about Hop play in the back of her mind, but she isn’t truly worried until she runs into Leon in Hammerlocke, looking slightly frantic, his cape off-centre and his hair in disarray. The average fan might not have noticed, but Gloria grew up with Hop insisting they watch each one of Lee’s matches, and with Leon himself home for each holiday right next door to boot. She’s learned to read him by now.

Leon appears genuinely concerned about Hop, and that’s what truly sets Gloria down the path of dark thoughts. Leon isn’t the worrying kind, most of the time. Hop inherited all of those genes in that family, and that’s precisely what Gloria is so worried about. Hop has never met a problem he couldn’t spiral into anxiety about, and Gloria knows this is exactly the kind of thing that’s likely to have Hop at the end of his rope.

So she goes looking for him. Leon wasn’t exactly the most helpful regarding his last known location—Leon, who has been known to get lost on the straight path between Postwick and Wedgehurst. (“I saw a really big Pidgey and got distracted and wandered off the path!” he’d said, but honestly, there is no size of Pidgey large enough to justify that.) But Bede had challenged Hop almost as soon as they’d gotten into the Wild Area, so she starts looking there.

She finds him before long, his tent pitched by the ruins of the old watchtower. He’s built a small fire, and he’s motionless, only his eyes following the dancing, flickering movements of the flames. His team of Pokemon is running loose around him, and his Wooloo is at his side, headbutting him in a way Gloria can only describe as affectionate.

She walks up to his camp, careful not to startle him. “Hey,” she calls out when she’s close enough for him to hear. “Room for one more by that fire?”

Hop lifts his head, barely looking in her direction. “Come to gloat, have you?”

Something resembling shock pierces Gloria, sends ice water through her veins. “I—gloat? Why would I—”

Hop interrupts her. “I know you’ve beaten Bede every time you’ve gone against him, and he beat me. It’s okay, I already know I’m garbage. You can just go on and keep living your charmed life.”

Gloria had come looking for Hop intending to look out for him, to take care of him, to cheer him up. All of that vanishes in an instant, and suddenly she’s mad. She’s _furious_.

She steps into the camp, placing herself between Hop and the fire so that, hopefully, the flames behind her make her look menacing. “Hop, what the _fuck_ ,” she says, so much emphasis on the expletive that it doesn’t really even come out a question.

He doesn’t look at her when he answers. “I know you’ve heard by now. I lost to Bede, and he’s running around telling everyone about it.”

Gloria feels like she’s hovering outside her own body and just watching the action as she shoves Hop over on the log he’s sitting on and plunks herself down next to him. “Hey,” she says, then reaches over to turn his head to face hers when he doesn’t react. “ _Listen_ to me, god.”

Reluctantly, he lifts his gaze to meet her eyes.

“Hop. Everyone loses sometimes, okay?” She tries to maintain eye contact with him, but he looks away again.

“Hey!” she says, and grabs his face with both hands, one on each of his cheeks. “Look at me. I know you know this, because you’ve lost to me like three times already and each time it’s just made you fight harder the next time. And you and I both know you’ve seen me lose to a whole bunch of random trainers. So do you want to tell me what the fuck is going on with you?”

Hop sighs, so dramatically she can feel it in both of her palms still resting on his cheeks. “Can you…” he says, then trails off, like he’s embarrassed about what he’s about to say. “Could you not look, like, directly at me when I’m saying this?” he asks, voice already small.

“Sure,” she says, tone already a hundred times softer than it had been only moments ago. She doesn’t know what’s going on with him yet, but she can give him this. She turns her gaze to the flames, and, next to her, Hop clears his throat.

“He said…” he trails off and starts again. “He says I was a disgrace to my family. To Lee.”

Instantly, Gloria softens and puts an arm around him. “You know he’s full of shit, right?”

Hop makes a sound that’s somewhere between a sniff and a snort.

“I mean it,” she insists, and she’s not quite sure where the fierceness of her tone is coming from, but she doubles down on it. “Listen to me. I’ve known Leon almost as long as I’ve known you, and he’s so proud of you. He doesn’t give a shit about some random kid running around mouthing off about beating you. You know that, right?”

Hop keeps his gaze resolutely on the fire, and Gloria sighs. For the second time in as many minutes, she reaches over to grab his face and turns it so she’s staring directly at him. “ _Hop_. Don’t let Bede make you into this miserable person hiding from the Gym Challenge.”

“But—” he starts to say, and she cuts him off.

“But nothing,” she says fiercely. “You’re still one of the best trainers I know, and a little shit like Bede with issues of his own isn’t going to change that. I need you to believe me on this, okay?”

Finally, Hop meets her gaze without even trying to look away. “Okay.”

There’s something in his tone she can’t quite parse, something that speaks to a belief in her as strong as any religious belief, but she brushes that aside for now. It’s too big for her to hold in her mind here, at Hop’s little campfire in the Wild Area.

Instead, she releases his face and takes his hand. “Good,” she says after a moment. “Who else is gonna be my rival and train with me until we reach the Champion Cup?”

“I bet Bede would,” Hop mutters, and she glares at him.

“Shut up, Hop, you know you’re the only rival I want.” He squeezes her hand, and she smiles at him.

They sit there for a little while longer, staring into the flames, still holding hands. Eventually, Hop starts to yawn, and Gloria lets Drizzle out to drench the fire. They haven’t camped out together before, but there’s no discussion before Gloria crawls into his tent with him and lays her sleeping bag out next to his.

Hop looks at her with what she’s sure was meant to be a questioning expression, but all she sees in it is gratitude and affection. They get in their sleeping bags, and she curls up, facing him, their noses just inches apart.

He doesn’t say anything as they get ready for bed, but right before she drifts off, she hears him whisper “thank you.”

Gloria wakes up the next morning with Hop’s hand wrapped around her wrist, their ankles tangled together as much as such a thing is possible through two sleeping bags. She doesn’t know quite what to do, so she ends up just lying there, unmoving, until Hop wakes up and withdraws his hand with a start.

It’s not unpleasant, she thinks, lying there with his skin on hers.

The morning is awkward, in the way the morning after tends to be awkward when you’ve just platonically spent the night with someone and something inside you is waking up to the fact that you really don’t want it to be quite so platonic after all. But Hop looks like the events of the past few days are still weighing on him, and she decides that now isn’t the time to bring up the fact that waking up to find his hand on her set her skin on fire.

They part ways after a subdued breakfast, Hop into the Wild Area to train up his Pokemon and rebuild his confidence a little, Gloria off to Hammerlocke to follow the path of the Gym Challenge.

They only run into each other sporadically after that, both busy with their own Gym Challenges. In Stow-on-Side he boasts that he’s finally found the best combination of Pokemon to put on his team, and she sighs.

“Hop, babe. Listen to me. Stop putting all your effort into flashy teams and just focus on being the best trainer you can be, okay?”

It’s only later as she’s walking away that she realises she called him _babe_ , and that he didn’t call her out on it.

Somewhere along her travels, Gloria runs into a man who seems intent on telling her about some legend relating to the Pokemon Applin. She’s about to keep walking, but something inside her tells her to listen to him.

Apparently, the story goes like this: if you love someone, you should give them an Applin as a sign. She snorts in laughter, but in her mind she’s already mapping out where she’s seen Applin before. A couple of hours later, she’s still rolling her eyes at herself as she’s catching an Applin and tucking it away in her Pokemon Box.

It’s not that she’s planning on using it, necessarily. It just seems like a good option to have in her back pocket.

Gloria looks in on one of the Gyms Hop challenges, sneaking into the audience without telling him. He really seems like he’s hit his stride. All of the uncertainty from that night in the Wild Area is gone, and there’s only the strong, self-assured trainer she’s always known he could be. She knows he could recite Gym leaders and their type matchups in his sleep, and it shows in the way he battles now that he’s more comfortable in his own skin.

She considers staying to congratulate him when the match is over, maybe take him out for a celebratory meal, but ultimately decides against it. This is his day, and she can’t guarantee that if she stuck around to talk to him, she wouldn’t make it about herself. Specifically, about herself with him.

There’ll be time enough for that later.

The day before Gloria enters the Champion Cup is warm, and she changes into the crop top from the Hulbury Gym without really thinking about it. Her hair has grown out during the Challenge, reaching halfway down her back by now, and sun-warmed strands tickle her ribs as she makes her way to Wyndon Stadium.

The Stadium is busy, and she gets hustled into her first battle against Marnie without even seeing Hop. Marnie ends up being easy to defeat, and before she knows it Gloria is standing in the middle of the field again, facing down Hop.

Hop, whose gaze seems to catch on her exposed stomach as he visibly gulps. There’s a new tension between them, something that hasn’t been there before but that’s thrumming, electric, hypnotic. Gloria smirks and tosses her hair, just the slightest twitch. It won’t be visible in the stands, but Hop’s eyes track the movement like he’d track an opponent’s battle plays.

“Trying to distract me is playing dirty,” Hop says, and a thrill runs through Gloria, because that must mean he feels it too, this new thing between them.

“I would never,” Gloria says, winking as if she’s doing it on purpose.

Later, all the news outlets say it’s the most intense battle anyone can remember seeing. But in the heat of the moment, all Gloria is aware of is that it’s the most _fun_ she’s had battling in ages, maybe ever. She and Hop are almost perfectly matched, and the outcome is anyone’s guess until the very final moves.

She’s used to battles with Hop being filled with banter and trash-talk, but they’re both silent this time. Focused. She can’t speak for Hop, but Gloria knows why she isn’t her usual self: the Championship matches are televised, and those parts of her and Hop aren’t for the world to see, they’re for the two of them only.

Also because she’s not entirely convinced that she could keep herself from saying something stupid like _I love you_ live on air, and that isn’t something she wants to share with all of Galar, either. And she doesn’t think Hop could handle that without spiralling. So she stays silent.

The rush of people surrounding them after her victory is immediate, and there’s no way for her to get Hop alone. She’s carried away by the crowd, all the way to the Rose of the Rondelands hotel, where all the competitors are staying. Some of them try to get in the elevator with her, but she pushes them out. Just as the doors are closing, she catches sight of Hop entering the lobby amidst almost as intense a crowd. He may have lost to her, but they’re still the two best trainers to have taken on the Gym Challenge this year.

When she reaches the floor she and Hop are both staying on, Gloria is tempted to wait for him by the elevators. Nature, however, wins out, as she realises she hasn’t had a moment to herself to sit down or have a drink of water or anything else since this whole hectic day started. She ducks into her room to freshen up just a little, and when she opens the door to go wait for Hop in the hallway, he’s already there, fist raised like he was just about to knock on her door.

His sudden proximity draws a gasp from her, and he grins.

“Hey, so—” he starts, and Gloria cuts him off by grabbing his face and pulling it down so she can kiss him. It takes him a moment to react, and Gloria pulls back, searching his face.

“That’s what you were going to say, right?” she asks, bravado hiding the small knot of worry that she’s misread the situation somehow.

“Absolutely,” Hop says, “you just caught me off guard, is all.” Then his lips are back on hers and his hands are on her waist, pulling her close to him. She could swear his fingertips leave scorch marks on her ribcage as he trails them up her sides, plays with the hem of her top. The heat on her skin coaxes up heat within her, ignites her until she’s singularly focused on his hands, his lips, the solid warmth of his body against hers.

She’s rudely pulled back into reality when Hop’s phone rings. He pulls it out and his face falls. “Leon,” he says, already answering. “Hi, Lee—yes, I know we said we’d have dinner with you, we just, uh… lost track of time.”

Gloria buries her face in his chest to hide her laughter, and he traces absentminded patterns on her back as he finishes up the phone call.

“Sorry about that,” he says as he tucks his phone back in his pocket. “I was going to tell him to shove it, but you know how Leon gets when things aren’t about him. It’s probably best if we just have a quick dinner, and then we can, uh… have the rest of the night to ourselves.” A faint blush rises on his cheekbones as he says the last part, and Gloria winks. He sputters a little, but when he puts his hand on the small of her back as they walk to the elevator, his touch is steady and sure.

His touch is, but in a rush she realises that amidst all the touching, they never actually discussed the _feelings_ of it all. Gloria has always been an impulsive person, which, she supposes, probably explains the fact that they’ve barely made it to the elevator when she feels like she can’t hold it in anymore.

“Hey, so,” she starts, but then there are so many things she wants to say at once that she can’t decide where to start, and instead ends up panicking and pulling out the PokeBall containing Applin. She tosses it at Hop, and he ends up hitting the button, releasing the Pokemon. When she dares to look at him, he’s grinning at her.

“I love you too,” he says, and elation spreads its lazy warmth through her.

The elevator doors open to reveal Hop and Gloria entwined in each other's arms, Applin puttering about around their feet, and Leon snorts. “Figured it out, did you?” he calls out, but his smile is fond. “Come on, let’s go have dinner, and then I’ll let you get back to… all of that.” He gestures vaguely towards the pair, who duck out of the elevator with embarrassed smiles and hands firmly clasped.

“Forgetting something?” Leon asks drily, and Gloria turns around with a start. “Applin!” She manages to grab the Pokemon right before the elevator doors close.

“Pokemon aren’t just props for your romantic declarations, you know,” Leon says, mock-sternly, as they head towards the hotel restaurant, and Hop swats him on the arm.

“No, but can you blame us for being a little distracted?”


End file.
